ANI-MOVIES, *G.I. Joe: The Movie

Since Transformers and My Little Pony got their own full-length animated motion picture in the mid-80s, then Hasbro felt it was worth doing one for the last of its Big 3 sellers. However, since the 80s were saturated with non-Disney animated films, G.I. Joe: The Movie was instead released directly to video, making it one of the first American "OVAs". Conveniently though, it was largely produced by Toei Animation, along with additional help from Sunbow and Marvel Entertainment.

After one of the most spectacular movie openings ever with Cobra trying to bomb the Statue of Liberty, the ruthless terrorist organization is contacted by a mysterious infiltrator named Pythona. She convinces Cobra's emperor Serpentor to take G.I. Joe's latest gadget, the Broadcast Energy Transmitter, which is capable of sending energy through an all-terrain vehicle. The Joes manage to keep the BET out of Cobra's clutches, but some of their crew wind up prisoners of Pythona's people, a subterranean race of bug people called Cobra-La who originally financed Cobra Commander's forming of Cobra itself, but helped them create Serpentor to replace him after so many bungled attacks at world domination. Now, Cobra joins Cobra-La to get the BET from G.I. Joe, who plans to use the device to cover the planet with spores that will mutate everyone into reptile people. The Joe's manage to capture Serpentor, but because of Duke's brother Falcon screwing up, he's sprung by the Dreadnoks, leaving Falcon to get re-schooled in being a soldier by Sgt. Slaughter. Cobra Commander is punished by Cobra-La who turn him into a talking snake, but escapes with Road Block. Serpentor leads another attack on Joe HQ, leaving Duke "in a coma", motivating Falcon and the rest of the rawhide new Joes to invade Cobra-La's underground citadel. A massive fight between the insect-like Cobra-La soldiers and its leader, the snake-taur Golobulus, as Falcon and the other Joes manage to stop them and save the Earth.

Taking place after Season 2 of the original series, G.I. Joe: The Movie sets up a follow-up series produced by DIC, who in the 80s also did Inspector Gadget and The Real Ghostbusters, but it wasn't like Transformers: The Movie where they killed off much of the original cast to make room for new recruits. It's a little strange for the continuity for the series though to take a spec-ops team fighting terrorists to making the real bad guys be a hidden society of mole-men, making it more of a Marvel Comics' styled plot, like having SHIELD battling Thanos instead of Hydra. The animation quality is a slight step up from the television production, especially the giant insect monsters of Cobra-La, but not too much of a departure from the standard norm. If you hadn't seen much of the prior G.I. Joe TV series, the movie does stand good enough on its own if you want to just catch some glorious 80's cartoon action!